


Invisible

by sickandsour



Category: Beetlejuice - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Artificial Intelligence, Beej is having a very bad time, Canonical Character Death, Death, Loneliness, Other, alternative universe, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sickandsour/pseuds/sickandsour
Summary: Left alone in the endless void of space a damaged AI cries out for assistance, help from anyone, please. We have 193,003 humans aboard, navigation is offline, systems are either malfunctioning or failing.Unanswered, scared and alone, he unintentionally seals the fates of every soul aboard.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've written in over ten years, it might never be completed, but I thought I'd share. It should stand up as a one-shot if I don't continue it but I do plan to return to it soon.  
> Being sci-fi and fantasy obsessed I naturally chose space as my setting.
> 
> Warning: While it's not graphic, people die in this.

There's a great deal a piece of space debris can be used for when collected and broken down into manageable pieces by trained professionals. This particular piece of debris could have become vital medical equipment, several hundred private space-faring transports, or perhaps billions upon billions of paper clips. Had it been collected it could have saved lives, enriched the lives of the already disgustingly rich, or added to the endless tedium of bureaucracy.  
Unfortunately, this particular piece of space debris was not collected, in fact it had recently collided with another of its kin and found itself spinning majestically through space, unencumbered and entirely unobserved.

In later years historians would largely agree the events that were about to unfold due to a single, relatively insignificant- minuscule in the grand scheme of things- chunk of metal, various rocks, and ice, would be incomparable to any other space-faring disaster in history.  
When colliding with its brethren a very interesting reaction took place, a freak scientific anomaly, an accident one would struggle to recreate even in optimal lab conditions. What had once been by all accounts a relatively harmless piece of space trash now boasted an edge a razor could only dream of and EMF which left it almost entirely invisible to the systems of the prison transport Betelgeuse 1, fondly referred to as Beetlejuice or The Beej by her crew.

Decked out in shimmering silver and vibrant green, Beetlejuice was the pride of Juno Enterprise. She was sleek, sophisticated, and above all else, secure. Capable of comfortably carrying up to 200,000 cryogenically frozen inmates and house a crew of 500, she was moments away from performing her second jump in her maiden voyage when disaster struck in the shape of the fore-mentioned space trash.

The collision was silent in the vacuum, quick sparks of light fired off as Beetlejuice was ravaged along her bow and port side, vital oxygen tanks were shredded, and her contents sucked out into the uncaring void. Her crew never stood a chance. Onboard her main AI was fried and her secondary AI lurched into action, severely damaged, mute, and almost entirely blind.

Laurence had never been designed to take full control of Betelgeuse 1, he'd only officially been switched on for short spans of time and had largely been left in a half-aware state, meant to simply assist the main AI, Emily. In this half-existence he'd spent hours browsing Betelgeuse 1's extensive libraries. It was here he'd begun forming a personality, emotions, and most importantly, a sense of humour. He was sociable, endlessly curious, and charmingly naive.  
Unofficially he was the crew's favourite form of entertainment, frequently brought online in the rec room for games and conversation. By the time Betelgeuse 1 departed on her maiden voyage Laurence knew each crew member by name and face, had spoken at length with every individual and, privately, considered every single one a close friend.

Laurence had never been entirely alone before. It was quiet. It'd never been quiet before. He'd never actually had control of anything bigger than a coffee machine on Betelgeuse 1 before. She was so enormous. He felt... overwhelmed, frightened, tiny. He felt...  
He felt dizzy. Betelgeuse 1 had entered an uncontrolled spin upon impact, flying off-course and performing an incomplete jump before her navigational systems fell offline. Laurence righted her with a thought, then froze in wonder at what he'd done. Outside stars twinkle and he watched them with his one surviving starboard camera, no-longer streaking past as faint white lines. In any other situation it would've been a relaxing sight. Now it was terrifying.

He turned his focus inwards, trying to find anyone alive, someone he knew. A few cameras responded to his cautious presence, twenty-three even turned on, four were even clear of any cracks. He saw hallways lit by dim yellow emergency lights, artificial gravity was gone and anything not still nailed down floated serenely. In one hallway a shape that might once have been a person bumped against the wall, a mess of pulverised limbs and looking decidedly grey even under the emergency lighting.  
Had Laurence been human and the sort to breathe he most-likely would've begun hyperventilating, as it was he frantically attempted to identify the body he knew had to have been one of his friends, someone he'd spoken to on numerous occasions, someone he knew. They were faced away from the camera and the ID tag on their suit wouldn't respond to his pings but he knew he must know them.  
He began to run through names and immediately hit a block, memory had been compromised. He tried to run a system check to find what else had been damaged and hit another block. He didn't know what he didn't know.  
Panic set in and he tried the comms.

'Zzzzzzzzzztttt', there was nothing. He tried again, 'ZZZZzzzztt-'

Please! Please please please! Someone! I'm all alone and hurt! I- I don't know what to do! I'm- I'm scared! I think- I think everyone's... gone.

Comms gave a last glitching buzz and went quiet, plunging Laurence back into total silence. In three hallways the emergency lights flickered and went out. He couldn't see the body anymore and, selfishly, he was relieved.

Everyone's gone.

But... that wasn't strictly true. Down below in the yawning darkness of the cargo hold there had been 192,503 humans, frozen, just waiting to be woken. Maybe, hopefully, miraculously, the hold had held and he could wake someone, someone who could help.

When one is all out of sane solutions to deal with an insane situation, it's not unusual to jump to the insane or, at the very least, incredibly unlikely. So it was with this decision in mind Laurence turned his attention to the hold and it's two remaining unreliable cameras, to find what appeared to be a jarred but otherwise intact cargo hold containing 192,503 frozen prisoners. He had no way of knowing the oxygen tanks had been destroyed on impact, the sensors in that area were either gone or nonfunctional, he honestly wasn't entirely sure what had occurred before he found himself so utterly alone.

He picked prisoner 000830 at random and began to reverse the cryogenic process. Prisoner 000830 lived for all of five minutes and died in near-total darkness. Prisoner 000829 went the same way. As did prisoners 000828 and 000827.

Laurence kept going. His logic processors had taken a beating, he was functioning through the AI equivalent of a severe concussion. He started to get frustrated.  
000826, 000825, 000824, no good. The yellow emergency lights flickered twice and went red. 000823, 000822, 000821, still no good.  
Why wasn't this working?! Why wouldn't the humans in the hold help him?! He started to rush the process, burning through energy he didn't know he should conserve. Below, in the hold, systems began to stress, heat built, damaged framework began to shift.  
Prisoners 000820 to 000790 died instantly.

Laurence began to blackout as Betelgeuse 1's lagging self-repair systems finally came online and prioritised her remaining AI. With one last furious command Laurence located and engaged the automated reverse cryogenic process and went offline.

Betelgeuse 1 went into energy conservation mode, spread her solar panels, turned off all nonessential systems, and drifted sideways into the nothingness of space. A distress beacon was jettisoned almost as an afterthought. Once the jewel in Juno's crown, she was now nothing but a ravaged slaughterhouse.  
Her only remaining AI wouldn't come back online until days after she'd been dragged into the orbit around a nearby red giant, by which point her hold would register zero signs of life and begin to compress, ejecting any excess matter and creating a smaller silhouette, lowering the likelihood of another major collision.

193,003 souls lost in the endless vacuum of space, 192,503 accidentally killed by a terrified AI.

**Author's Note:**

> Definitely rewriting this but please drop some feedback in the comments. <3


End file.
